John Lutz: Spark

“Nice setup,” Carver said, waving his arm in a motion that took in the rec center and outside facilities.

“That’s why Jerome and I decided on this place to retire to,” Hattie told him.

“Did Jerome golf?”

“Sometimes, but he wasn’t a fanatic. Not like some of these retired fools who’d try to play right through a heart attack.”

Beyond the trees on the far side of the course rose a circular, four-story building with a lot of windows winking in the sunlight. It seemed to be constructed of the same beige brick as the rec center. Carver asked Hattie if it was part of Solartown.

“That’s our medical center,” she said without emotion. “Where Jerome died.”

They turned away from the view and she showed Carver the restaurant, which was like a Denny’s only fancier and with more tables. “Food’s not bad,” she said, “and sometimes they have fashion shows here. Older male and female models wearing the kind of apparel bought by the people here in Solartown.”

Apparel, Carver thought. The schoolteacher making itself evident again in Hattie. He said, “I think I’ll drop you off at home, then drive by the medical center and talk to Jerome’s doctor.”

“His name’s Billingsly,” Hattie said. “Nice young man, and reasonably competent. I’ll phone and tell him you’re coming and he’s to confide in you about Jerome. After I talk to him he’ll surely be cooperative.”

“I’ll just bet,” Carver said.

“No lip,” Hattie warned him.

Carver drove her back to her house.

Kept a civil tongue in his head.

As Carver steered the Olds into the driveway of Hattie’s pastel-blue house, he noticed a man on the porch.

“Val Green,” Hattie said with a trace of irritation. “He lives next door. Pesky devil.”

Carver parked the car and limped beside Hattie up to the house. He was struck again by how quiet it was in Solartown. Minimum traffic noise, no voices of children. And now, in midmorning heat, not even the drone of a power mower. It wasn’t going to get cooler today. Or rain. There was only unbroken blue overhead except for an airliner’s high, wind-shredded vapor trail that hung in the sky like a spirit.

“Just picked up your newspaper and was setting it on the porch for you,” the pesky devil named Val said to Hattie with a smile. He was a wiry little guy about seventy who had one of those faces people said would always look young, so that now it resembled a boy’s face someone had penciled lines on. Carver thought he resembled Elisha Cook, Jr., the actor who was in a lot of the old black-and-white gangster films Desoto loved to watch on late-night TV.

“I’d adopt a dog if I wanted my paper fetched,” Hattie told him.

His hopeful, leprechaun features fell in disappointment. Carver felt sorry for him. Hattie could be rough, all right.

“No need for a dog,” Val said. “I was outside watering my lawn, so I figured I’d help out. You shouldn’t be too proud to accept help, Hattie, in your stressful situation.”

“Widows aren’t parasites,” she said. Then she seemed to remember her manners and introduced Carver to Val Green.

“I live in that green house,” Val said, pointing to the pale-green house on the left of Hattie’s. It was recently painted and immaculately kept. “Green like my name, so’s I can always remember where I live if I was to drink too much some night.” He laughed. Carver politely followed suit. Hattie somberly unlocked the door.

“Thanks,” she said, as Val handed her the rolled-up newspaper.

“No trouble whatsoever. With Jerome gone, you need any heavy work done, man’s work, you just call or knock on my door.”

“I’ll do that,” Hattie said, but not with any sincerity. “Please come in, Mr. Carver.”

That hadn’t been in the plan, but Carver limped toward the door.

“Nice meeting you, Mr. Carver,” Val said.

Carver caught a glimpse of the expression on his face as Hattie shut the door. He was sure Val was in love with Hattie. That was probably what it was about him that irritated her.

“I just wanted to give Val a chance to go home,” she said. “He’s difficult to be rid of when he gets talking.”

“I wouldn’t mind listening to him,” Carver said.

“Yes you would. He can be a trial.”

“He and Jerome get along?”

“Oh, sure. They’d go fishing, play cards or golf now and then. Jerome would go next door and they’d watch Braves games on TV from Atlanta. I don’t like spectator sports. Or the Turner network. He colored over all those fine old movies. Sometimes Jerome and Val would watch one of those crayoned abominations.”

“Aren’t you being kind of tough on him?”

“Not tough enough. Anyway, he’s got millions of dollars and Jane Fonda.”

“I mean Val Green. He seemed a nice enough guy.”

She removed her hat and sighed. “Oh, I suppose he is, at heart.”

Speaking of heart. “He seems to like you a lot.”

“Too much. That’s the problem.”

“I have to ask this,” Carver said. “When Jerome was alive-”

“Val never once acted in an ungentlemanly fashion toward me,” Hattie interrupted. “I will say that for him. Had he been less than honorable I would have slapped his face red and then told Jerome, and their friendship would have been terminated.”

“I expect so,” Carver said.

Hattie walked to the window and peeked out through the white lace curtain. “I think he’s gone back in. I knew he would. It’s too hot out there for an old goat like him.”

“Safe for me to go, then,” Carver told her. He limped to the door and opened it. “I’ll call if I learn anything. If you want me, leave a message at the Warm Sands Motel. I’ve got a room reserved there, but I haven’t checked in yet.”

“That place has a reputation,” Hattie said.

It took Carver a few seconds to realize what she meant. “It would anyway,” Carver told her, “being near a retirement community.”

Hattie seemed to find nothing incongruous in that observation as she saw him out.

Val hadn’t gone inside. He was standing in his front yard watering his lawn with a green hose equipped with a complicated brass nozzle.

As Carver was about to get in the Olds, Val did something to the nozzle that stopped the flow of water, then walked over to him. He moved stiffly yet with a spry kind of nimbleness, as if his legs were still strong out of proportion to his thin frame. Carver leaned with his forearm on the open car door and waited for him.

“Wanted to talk to you alone,” Val said, when he’d gotten near enough for there to be no chance he might be overheard inside the house. “There’s a few things you need to understand about Hattie.”

Carver hoped she wasn’t watching through the window; he understood that much about her.

“She’s plenty broke up about Jerome’s passing,” Val said.

“That’s natural. He was her husband.”

“But it don’t mean she ain’t thinking straight in being suspicious about how he died.”

“She tell you she had suspicions?”

“Didn’t have to tell me. I can read her.”

“What do you think?” Carver asked. “You knew Jerome.”

“Knew him, all right. He seemed a healthy one. I didn’t figure him for a heart attack.”

“You think he died from one?”

“I don’t see how it coulda been anything else, but somehow it don’t set right. That’s why I wanted to tell you, you need my help for anything just ask. I’m a member of the Posse.”

“Posse?”

“The Solartown Posse.” Val pointed to his garage. The overhead door was raised and the rear bumper of the green Dodge Aries parked inside sported a sticker that said just that: SOLARTOWN POSSE.